Though I‘ve had to start prepping classes and have one of those 🤬 meetings tomorrow, I refuse to be defeated out of my summer vibe. People are complaining about the heat & humidity at my house. I am not one of them bc I know what‘s coming.

Hubby brought back a thoughtful gift from Beacon Hill Books. 😍🥰 He also told me about the floor to ceiling Persephone collection. I guessed it was Persephone bc he described them as “you know those grey cover books you like”……

He managed to finally find himself a copy of Notes from the Underground. I bet we looked in a dozen bookshops this summer. It‘s one of those books you see all the time until you want it.

Time to start thinking about some seasonal fermented vinegars & veggies. I love fire ciders. 🥵🔥

#fridayhappyreadinghour Trying to foil Mother Nature by moving to the front, but that only lasted so long. 😜 Rain is one thing, wind is another.

Sarah Brown from Zenith Bookstore in Duluth, MN wasn‘t kidding about this cover! I immediately borrowed the Kindle edition from the library. 😵

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2025/08/15/best-beach-reads-from-minnesota-booksel...

I acknowledge this is a cilantro novel and unabashedly declare I am in the 🖤 camp. It‘s time for a reread and I am savoring every delicious gothic moment during bedtime reading.

It‘s happy reading hour with a Wisconsin beer in the Wisconsin woods, with Dostoevsky in a screen tent. There must be a relevant connection within the 900 pages.

I have the necessary choice of bug spray or a screen tent. Today it‘s the tent. 🦟🦟

I really enjoyed the mystery surrounding the origins of mute psychiatric patient William, but the love life woes of art therapist Helen, who is helping solve the puzzle, were a distraction.

Not a chance in hell camping or women owned & brewed beer would meet with I.R.‘s exacting geometrical & theological standards. 😏

This novella is a heartache that reads like a fever dream. The ghosts are haunting. (Pun intended.)

I read this in all but a single sitting. I had to know about Hetty!

Hetty is a woman of mystery. Is she friend or foe? 👀

#PersephoneClub

I had to look up the village of Lytton & the Thompson River. I didn‘t know it had been decimated by a wildfire in 2021. 😒 Rebuilding very slowly.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/mayor-lytton-return-home-1.75193...

#PersephoneClub

Why do I suspect Iggy could have used a good pedicure?

A bit ridiculous that it‘s cool enough for a quilt on 8/1, but so is the idea Ignatius wears a winter getup in New Orleans.

Only on chapter 2, but I‘ve laughed out loud and snorted multiple times. I finally understand why my husband found this novel so funny.

Friday Happy Reading Hour is here again. 😁 @mcctrish @Aims42

#FridayHappyReadingHour

P.S. The haze in the background is smoke from Canadian wild fires. It‘s been particularly bad & persistent this summer.

These short stories tell the natural history of Henrietta, a lepidopterist, and her family. As with most short story collections some stories were more engaging than others. It‘s a bit sprawling, which in the end made it difficult to track the characters.

I won‘t soon forget Henrietta‘s young niece Caroline attempting to unzip her infant sister in order to let out the future playmate sooner, as if she were a moth chrysalis. 😳

🙇🏾‍♀️🙇🏾‍♀️ Now I have to wait until November (18th???) for volumes 3 & 4! Poop.

Cliff hanger.

🤣🔦 Truth

New to me author, thanks to @Billypar ! B&N didn‘t have the two you recommended, but the blurb for this one is intriguing. 😄

And it‘s an Indie Publisher 👏🏾👏🏾

Ummmmm maybe I‘m over protective or American culture is different, but I would not let my 5-6 year old son go with a woman I just met that day to a toy shop while I worked on a laptop in a cafe. 😐

On the other hand, my husband let some Ethiopian women unknown to him take our 3 month old baby into a bathroom in the Addis Ababa airport to change his diaper. First time dad - overwhelmed. 🤭

Soft pick. The MC repeatedly chastising the reader/listener during an account of her involvement with the family who employed her as a housekeeper & nanny got annoying and cheesy. Not a suspense thriller or mystery either.

Joining @mcctrish & @Aims42 for Friday Happy Reading Hour. 😊

Ohhhhh the dramaaaaaaaaaaa. 😅🙃 I feel like I need a fan and some fainting salts after this chapter.

Fremlin is a delight as always! It‘s really surprising she isn‘t more widely read. She deserves a renaissance!

This one is a perfect mystery for summer reading. I didn‘t see the twist coming and character development hooks you from the beginning. The second husband?! 😳 That‘s what makes Fremlin special - keen observation of human nature, especially our fears & foibles.

My go-to activities don‘t change much on vacation. 😁 Book acquisitions happened at Beartooth Books, a very charming shop and terrific addition to Red Lodge, MT.

I have an appointment with Fremlin in this spot for reading while husband & son fish this afternoon. I‘m in my favorite place in the world. 😊😌 Our backyard for three short days.

Federal lands should not be sold (as proposed) and hence locked up by the ultra wealthy. Little people like us would never have access to it or if so, only for a hefty price.

I‘m reading outside and I won‘t regret it in February. 😁 However, we did skip trail rides today.

I‘m feeling a good read coming on!

“Yes”, Mr. Swan says to himself, “the human family. Yes.”

This is an observational study about how family members can love & drive one another crazy in equal measure. 😜

I really enjoyed it, but I‘m also glad it wrapped up when it did because family bickering doesn‘t provide much in the way of narrative drive.

#FurrowedMiddlebrowClub

#tagyoureit ! @Daisey

You posted a review of this book that is on my (TBR) shelf. 😁

Find a book & post to play along!

@Deblovestoread @Chrissyreadit

Road trip - day one. Daughter is already complaining the dog is crowding her out. 4 mammals in the backseat: girl, boy, cat & dog. 😅

Tagged novel is a re-listen. I gave it 5 stars the first time around - we‘ll see if it holds up. 🤞🏾

Got me thru vacation prep. 😄

😂 Celia has planted so many witty barbs & slights in this novel! Throughly enjoying it! #FurrowedMiddlebrowClub

🤨

#FurrowedMiddlebrowClub

There are some beautiful lyrical sections, but overall the novel seemed a bit disjointed, though that might be intentional. I never felt like I knew any of the characters, including the MC.

In the end I‘m unlikely to remember anything expect the overwhelming majority of intercontinental communication is conveyed by underwater cables! Not satellites like we would expect.

Hands down my favorite McCann work is Apeirogon.

🤔 Interesting piece I‘m still pondering. Is Vesta a spirit or does she have an alter ego, or does she have a personality disorder or is she slipping into senility? Whatever the case, Moshfegh is able plant the reader inside Vesta‘s wild imagination and sadly, also reveal the oppression & lack of fulfillment that may account for it.

Audio knitting for Happy Hour.

I‘m very tempted to DNF this one. I recognize the narrator is unreliable, but maybe I should stick it out to see just how batty she really is????

Husband was telling me initially this was serialized online, which might have been more fun.

Basically the MC is MacGyver every chapter, which is fine but it isn‘t balanced out with enough of a human psychological/emotional storyline. I had to gloss over all of the technical math & science stuff every time he had to fix something, of which there is A LOT. I would have bailed had it not been for a bookclub.

But, the humor is first rate! 👍🏾

Oh my gosh, I haven‘t thought about Sanford & Son in decades! The theme music is fantastic - what a groove. Back when music was actually written and played by human beings. 👵🏻😉

https://youtu.be/j9z4zPKHbrA?si=3lysXLU4OZ0ruRXA

Had these bookmarks made for our witty IRL bookclub. 😎

“Pecola, on the other hand, restricted by youth and sex, experimented with methods of endurance.”

This is a gut punch of a novel. And like the poet she was, Morrison is a consummate narrator.

Storms are ruining my outdoor happy hour, but perhaps is a fitting atmosphere for this novel.

Baldwin was able write a complex portrait of David, an American young gay man in 1950‘s Paris, in such a way that the heartache, ambiguity, duplicity, longing, and guilt drip off the pages. I am left feeling ambivalent about him, which is perfect.

Poignant as hell.

😖 I feel bad because I thought the premise was good, but the execution was too saccharine and in some ways just not very realistic. Throw in preachy, but at the same time desperately trying not to offend both prochoice & prolife readers.

The MC seemed to be rather childish and the narrator pulled it off because I was annoyed with her. 😆

Finally sitting down and the first 🍺 of the season is well deserved. I‘ve spent two entire afternoons in 95+ heat cleaning out our camper. For the first time in two decades of camping we had mice in it over the winter, which meant everything had to come out, be washed, and the interior scrubbed. 😝

Back to my Happy Hour Reading.

I‘m enjoying Watney‘s humor, but definitely steers toward Jr. High. 😆

I‘m sure given the length of this tome there will be some connection to finches. 😆 We have a pair of yellow finches that sit atop the geraniums and pluck off the petals and peck at the window. Cheeky.

Walt is staying cool.

“But people can‘t, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents. Life gives us those and also takes them away and the great difficulty is to say Yes to life.” 💙

Happy Hour.

Tagged book is a gorgeous garden cookbook!

But this photo made me snort and laugh like a junior high kid. Daughter didn‘t think it was funny because A. she doesn‘t like carrots “gross” and B. she was eating.